Hello. I'm adding the latest chapter to the story. Once again, there was some material I pushed back to a later chapter. I didn't realize I would come up with all of these details over what was originally a smaller element to the story. But I guess that just means you'll have more to read. I hope you are enjoying it.

I also got to do my first Beta reading gig this past weekend. BDaddyDL wrote his first story, and it's really good. If you get a chance, have a look at Sarah vs. the Death of Charles Bartowski. (I beta'ed Chapter 4)

In the meantime, please read and review. Thanks!

Prague, Czech Republic
May 3, 2011
2:00 PM

The two gunmen walked to the opening in the Cechuv Bridge to see Ilsa Trinchina's car sink into the Vltava River. They quickly ran from the bridge to a café two blocks away and shed their gear, tossing the black masks and outfits into the garbage can. They walked to the front of the café and got into a car. They drove to a fire station and found an ambulance parked in the back. One of them hotwired the ambulance, while the other swiped two uniforms of the Agentura Hřivna Barrandov. They drove the ambulance back to the bridge.

Ilsa's car landed on the bottom of the river. The water from the river was slowly rising from underneath. Two divers quickly swam their way thirty feet down to the wreckage. One diver peered into the window to check inside, and the second diver pulled out a small sledgehammer attached to their leg. The first diver nodded, and the second diver rammed the sledgehammer into the driver's window, smashing the glass. The water rushed into the car, but the equalization of pressure allowed the two divers to open the door. They reached in and pulled Ilsa out. Each diver grabbed one of her arms and swam to the surface.

The two divers surfaced with Ilsa facing down in the water. To the two dozen onlookers along the bridge, she was dead. The two divers pulled her to the shore. They shed their oxygen tanks and flippers but kept their other gear on to hide their faces. They carried Ilsa up the stairs to the waiting ambulance. The two people inside the ambulance had a stretcher already prepared. They placed Ilsa on it and slid her into the back of the ambulance. The two divers accompanied her into the back. One ambulance worker slammed the doors shut, while the other got in the driver's seat. The ambulance pulled away from the scene.

The two divers took their masks off as Ilsa opened her eyes on the stretcher.

"Did it work, John?"

"It worked so well, I'm wondering if we forgot something," Casey replied. "It is very rare when operations go that perfectly."

"I still think you should have sent Chuck down," Jimmy said as he pulled out a blanket next to him and laid it on top of the shivering Ilsa. "I've never been scuba diving in my life. They didn't cover that with me at Nellis. Actually, I didn't even know how to swim until I trained there."

"You're a lot stronger than me," Chuck replied from the passenger seat of the ambulance. "You were the better choice if something went wrong down there."

"Besides," Casey added. "It's not like we had to depressurize. It was only thirty feet of water. You weren't exactly doing Jacques Cousteau work down there."

Jimmy looked a bit sheepish. "OK, but I thought I was supposed be trained in scuba diving first. That's what they always said on The Price is Right."

Chuck turned around and gave Jimmy a weird look. "The Price is Right? Seriously?"

"Eighteen months, Chuck. Eighteen months," Jimmy answered in a defensive tone.

Ilsa looked around at the four of them. "What is he talking about?"

"It's a long story," Chuck, Sarah, and Casey tiredly replied at the same time.

"Do you have the uniforms and everything else we need, Bartowski?" Casey asked.

Chuck handed Casey three boxes. Jimmy shedded his diver's suit and took one of the boxes. He opened it to find several prosthetic pieces. He took the largest of the five pieces and wrapped it carefully around Ilsa's neck and glued it in place. He handed one piece to Casey and two of the other pieces to Ilsa. Ilsa placed the prosthetic cuffs around her wrists while Casey and Jimmy placed the ones on her ankles. Jimmy brushed glue on each piece to insure they stayed in place.

"How far are we from the hospital?" Casey asked in a commanding tone.

"Less than five minutes. You better inject her now," Sarah replied.

Casey took a needle out of the box and wiped Ilsa's left arm with a disinfecting swab. "This will render you unconscious and slow your breathing and heartbeat to a bare minimum. Between this and the prosthetics, that should fool anybody in the hospital. We just need to have you certified dead and out of there within two hours."

"What happens in two hours?" Ilsa asked. Casey gave her a dour look that answered the question.

"I know it won't come to that. Thank you, John." Ilsa pulled Casey's face down for a kiss. They lingered with their lips together for a few seconds before Casey dejectedly sat back up and injected Ilsa with the tranquilizer. Her eyes glazed over, and her eyelids slowly shut. Jimmy moved her arms to her sides and everybody readied themselves to bring Ilsa to the morgue.

Sarah drove the ambulance to the emergency room entrance of the hospital. Chuck and she immediately exited the ambulance, and Casey and Jimmy moved to the front of the ambulance to remain out of sight. Chuck and Sarah opened the rear doors of the ambulance and pulled Ilsa out on the stretcher. Two orderlies took the stretcher and led them into an examination room. Casey and Jimmy slipped out of the ambulance and put on the doctors' coats and ID's Chuck procured for them. They walked into the hospital and waited outside the examination room. Chuck and Sarah helped the hospital staff move Ilsa onto an examination table. They quickly left with the stretcher.

Casey tapped his watch as they departed. "One hour, forty-five minutes. Don't dawdle."

"We'll be quick," Sarah replied. Chuck and Sarah sprinted out of the hospital. Casey and Jimmy entered the examination room and held up their ID's.

"Doctor, I'm Dr. Novotny and this is Dr. Jelinek," Jimmy said in an official voice. "We are with the Czech SIS. Have you certified this woman's death yet?"

"Yes, we just finished certifying her death, recorded at 1430 hours. Is there a problem?"

"Nothing we can discuss with you, but this woman is of interest to our department. We need the death certificate filled out quickly and we must keep the original. You may file a copy for your records."

Casey opened an envelope filled with water-logged papers. "Here are her documents. We will take the body downstairs to the morgue and await the paperwork. No one is to touch the body. The body will be picked up once you have completed what you need for your records. Proceed quickly, please."

"But what about an autopsy…"

"Madam, do you really wish to interfere with an investigation of the SIS?" Jimmy was playing the 'intimidating government official' role to the hilt. The doctor bought it. "I did not think so. There were a dozen people who witnessed this woman go into the Vltava River, and twice that many saw the police pull her body out. You have certified that she is dead. Your job is done. Now, I will not ask nicely again. Complete the certificates."

The doctor took a look at Casey and Jimmy, but both had looks plastered on their faces that indicated messing with them would not be in her best interest. She quickly went to her computer with Ilsa's fake passport to type in the information. Casey opened the door and signaled an orderly to wheel a gurney into the room. Casey and Jimmy took the gurney and placed it next to the examination table. They gently moved Ilsa onto the gurney. Casey followed the orderlies as they wheeled the gurney to the morgue in the basement, while Jimmy watched the doctor enter the information on Ilsa into the computer.

Chuck and Sarah quickly drove back to the abandoned garage where they kept the bodies of the two agents who tried to kill them the other night. They donned rubber gloves and placed one of the bodies into a bag from the ambulance.

"Ugh, and Jimmy wanted to do this part?" Chuck said in disgust as he lifted the body onto the stretcher. Even keeping the bodies in a refrigerator didn't alleviate Chuck's aversion to playing the role of undertaker.

"I think it's more him questioning his skill set once again. He drives me up a wall sometimes," Sarah replied.

"Only sometimes?" Chuck said with a smirk.

"OK, all the time," Sarah growled in frustration. "Come on. We only have an hour to go."

They got back into the ambulance and drove back to their car. Chuck exited the ambulance and drove their car to the hospital.

The orderlies delivered the gurney to the morgue under Casey's watchful eye. A steely glare and a flash of an ID later, Casey was alone with the unconscious Ilsa. He checked his watch; they had thirty minutes left. He took the needle with the medicine to revive Ilsa and placed it near her in preparation. A few minutes later, Jimmy came through the door with the certificate.

"All set?" Casey asked.

"Good to go," Jimmy replied. "I hacked into the police department's computer system while I was up there, and they have the same report on file. It should match up with the hospital's records, and Ilsa's alias should get flagged by the DGSE's computer network within a few hours. Hopefully, that will get Toupin to back off. We'll send the communiqué from our two 'friends' that they had a successful mission, and the greatly-exaggerated reports on Ilsa's death will be confirmed."

Casey checked his watch. "Twenty minutes. Walker is cutting it close."

"Trust me; if Sarah doesn't make it, sneaking out of here will be the least of our worries."

Casey nodded. "True. Those two always come through. They never failed before. Not significantly, anyway. The occasional bout with lady feelings aside, of course."

Jimmy laughed. "You're going with that? And who is that sleeping right next to you…a second cousin?"

A low grunt emanated from Casey. "Oh, and you're Mr. Integrity? Then who's the tall blonde who's been trying to access your hard drive?"

Jimmy put his hands up. "I never claimed innocence. But I'm new to all of this. Honestly, I still don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"Sometimes, that's when you do your best work."

Jimmy nodded. "Can't deny that."

Sarah pushed open the door to the morgue with the body of the agent in tow. "Give me a hand."

Jimmy went to help her with the stretcher while Casey injected Ilsa. Jimmy removed the toe tag from Ilsa and attached it to the zipper of the body bag the assassin was in.

Ilsa moved slowly on the gurney and opened her eyes. "How did we do?"

"They bought it," Casey replied. "Bartowski will meet you by the loading dock. Walker, Slade, and I will wheel this body out into the ambulance so they know the SIS took it away. There are hospital scrubs and an ID for you to use to get out."

"I'll go upstairs and tell the hospital administrators we're taking the body," Jimmy said as he departed the morgue. Ilsa changed into the hospital scrubs Casey stole for her, and Sarah hid Ilsa's wet clothes in the body bag.

A few moments later, Jimmy knocked on the door. Sarah, Casey, and Jimmy wheeled the stretcher out of the morgue and headed to the front of the hospital. Ilsa walked in the opposite direction and went to the back of the hospital, where she found Chuck waiting for her outside. They quickly got in his car and departed. Sarah, Casey, and Jimmy drove the ambulance away.

Washington, D.C.
May 4, 2011
11:00 AM EDT

Although it wasn't the first time Alex Forrest had been frustrated by this job, it never felt as bad as it did now. She had been investigating the break-in at the DNI for the last ten days, and they were no closer to finding a suspect. A search of the air vent didn't reveal anything more than they already knew. The thief didn't leave any hair samples or fingerprints in the duct work. Stress fatigue on the fan inside the vent indicated she went through it to escape. The thief used a winch system to pull herself through the vent, but they figured that out the minute they concluded she used the vent to escape.

She sat at the TV monitor for the second consecutive day pouring over the videotape surveillance. This person was smart; there was no way to pick her out on any camera in the facility. However, Alex would not be swayed. She knew they were missing something. The perfect getaway did not exist, and she was hell-bent on finding out where this woman slipped up.

She loaded the surveillance video from the exterior for the period of 12 PM to 2 PM on April 22nd. She started checking each of the twelve cameras that recorded employees leaving early that day for the Easter holiday. She had been through the footage twice already, but she was convinced the thief didn't hang around following the theft. That would have given the surveillance system too much time to record her for the remainder of the day.

She rolled back the footage as she quietly sipped from her third coffee of the day. She tried to relax her mind by thinking about Jimmy and their day following the mission in Las Vegas. That relaxed her a little too well. She kept losing her concentration. Damn him, anyway. She didn't even know where he was right now, and he was driving her crazy. A cup of coffee was certainly no substitute for being with him, regardless of how good the coffee was at the DNI. But it would have to suffice.

She changed cameras and started running through the footage again. Suddenly she blinked a few times to clear her eyesight. She tracked the footage back very slowly, hoping her eyes weren't starting to play tricks on her. She flicked back and forth between two images, each of them 1/30th of a second apart.

She saw a shoulder and long brunette hair in the second shot that wasn't in the first. And a partial shot of someone's face. The face disappeared in the remaining footage; only the hair and a white blouse could be made out.

Alex did some quick calculations. The woman appeared to be between 5'4" and 5'6". Based on her skin tone, Alex guessed the woman was in her late 20's. She was also very thin.

She immediately copied the images onto a disk and called the IT department. Hopefully, they could comprise the rest of the person she found. In a very complex puzzle, Alex may have found a big piece.

Prague, Czech Republic
May 6, 2011
10:00 AM

Chuck thought this was one of the more odd things he ever experienced in his life. This was the third funeral he ever attended, and this was the third funeral for someone who wasn't dead when it happened.

He attended Bryce's funeral, even with his mixed feelings towards his ex-roommate and, at that time, nemesis. He wanted closure regarding how that part of his life went at Stanford, but Bryce was not done with him. Bryce knew more about what Chuck could do than Chuck did. He returned to Chuck's dismay several months later and explained why he sent the Intersect file to him. In the end, Chuck accepted that Bryce was indeed trying to protect him. He died a year later trying to protect Chuck and his family from Fulcrum. Sarah went to Spain with Bryce's ashes, where they had their first mission together, while he trained to be an agent. In a way, Bryce sent Chuck on that same path once again. Only this time, Chuck knew he had to download the new Intersect to protect the people he loved. What happened as a result changed him forever, but he has never looked back on that decision with any regret.

The second funeral was even more emotional. He was the last person to talk to Jimmy Slade in the basement of the Ring facility. He never truly understood why people were so willing to do anything for him until he met Jimmy. He always had people who wanted to protect him, but he assumed it was out of obligation of family or duty. Jimmy didn't have either of these motivations. He didn't know Chuck, and certainly he didn't owe Chuck anything, given that Chuck inadvertently put his life in danger by revealing him to be the first Intersect. But Jimmy never backed down, no matter how bad the circumstances got. He was one of the most reliable people Chuck ever met. And someone, whom he only met two weeks earlier, who gave up his life to save Sarah's and his. Jimmy didn't even give it a second thought. He grew so close to everyone in such a short time, sacrificing himself was automatic in his mind. Thankfully, the CIA was able to pull him out of the rubble and bring him back to life. And he took full advantage of it. The big guy…former big guy…with the cynical sense of humor and personality so self-deprecating it still drove Chuck crazy, was now an agent. And soon to replace him as the Intersect.

Chuck had to admit this was the easiest of the three funerals he attended, since he already knew the person in question wasn't dead. As Chuck watched the small ceremony with Sarah a short distance away from the casket, under a group of trees so satellites would not see them there, he wondered what Casey felt any time he had to attend ceremonies like this. As the minister gave a short speech about Ilsa's work as a photographer and journalist…presumably her cover job…he couldn't help but think Casey probably had been through this more times than any human should. Certainly he lost many close friends in a career that spanned over twenty years. As Casey sat in the first row, making himself as visible as possible to sell his prior relationship to Ilsa and thus validating her 'death,' Chuck had to feel for what Casey sacrificed for over two decades. He left a fiancé and a daughter behind, and he was unable to reconnect with his past because he had to disappear.

But perhaps Casey's story would have a happy ending after all. Chuck remembered that sentimental look in Casey's eyes as he described Ilsa three years ago. He felt betrayal that Ilsa was really a member of the French SIS and their relationship was originally a simple matter of convenience. However, Ilsa admitted having feelings for Casey; feelings that were clearly alive and well. And based on the fact Casey defied standing orders to guard Chuck in order to help Ilsa, Casey still had strong feelings for her, too.

The ceremony ended, and Chuck watched an older couple…presumably Ilsa's parents, stop briefly at the casket to say their final goodbyes. Casey walked to the car where Jimmy was waiting for him. Chuck and Sarah walked to their own car; still out of sight of video surveillance. Ilsa was waiting for all of them at the safehouse, where they would pack their bags for Moscow to obtain the files off the printers in the French embassy. He had to admit a small part of him was going to miss this. He never remotely imagined he would be able to help others as much as he did over the last four years. And he would continue to do so, albeit with less personal risk. More than a few people in the CIA felt they were lucky to have someone like Chuck. But as he looked down at his hand, joined with Sarah's, he felt like he was the lucky one.

Burbank, CA
May 6, 2011
3:00 PM PDT

Mr. Diaz was normally a patient man. It was an important aspect of his job that most other people would downplay. However, this particular assignment was starting to grate on him. Like any other operative, a lack of information was part and parcel with what he did. He would not have minded it if he was actually making progress with finding Slade and delivering the Cipher to The Ring. But all of his work thus far had been for nothing. Slade was nowhere to be found, and Dana Browning had to restrict her communications as an investigation into the theft of the Cipher from the DNI meant everybody was being watched carefully. The only other information Dana revealed was that Alex Forrest was leading the investigation.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, he thought. And Alex Forrest was likely one pissed off agent right now. The powers that be in the DNI knew to put her in charge; she was smart and had plenty of motivation. At this point, Dana couldn't risk disappearing until they knew Forrest had reached a dead-end in her investigation. She was careful in obtaining the Cipher and eliminating the people who witnessed her do it. But Mr. Diaz was running out of time, and waiting until the coast was clear may not be an option much longer.

He kept the Buy More and the Orange Orange under surveillance for the third consecutive day. He did not see any of the people who would have access to the facility the Ring suspected was underneath the mall. He did spot Bartowski's best friend, Morgan, in the Buy More. He gave some thought to kidnapping and torturing him for information, but he kept that as a back-up plan. He wasn't sure how much the short, bearded man knew, but he suspected Bartowski kept Morgan in the dark for his own protection. At best, he could only use Morgan as a tool to lure Bartowski, like he used Forrest as a lure for Slade. That idea did not work very well the last time he tried it, as his still-throbbing arm reminded him.

He sent a text message. It was 6 PM on the east coast, and Dana would not be at the DNI at this point. Perhaps she could locate the people missing from Burbank. If he was right, it was less important knowing where they were and more important knowing where they weren't.

Moscow, Russia
May 9, 2011
11:00 AM

Ilsa drove the van to a bank two blocks away from the embassy. She would be Chuck's eyes and ears as he slipped into the embassy, with Casey's help, to locate the access point to download the data stored in the embassy printer that would point to who printed the documents. It was up to Sarah and Jimmy to create a diversion that would get the embassy's security detail looking in the other direction.

"Almost there, Jimmy?" Sarah asked.

"Give me just one moment, and I should be into their system," Jimmy replied as he attempted to hack into the surveillance system of the embassy. Overriding the video feeds was of paramount importance in order to allow Chuck and Casey to sneak in the back. They wanted the security detail in the embassy to think everything in the building was status quo…apart from the stunt Sarah and Jimmy were going to try.

At another computer, Chuck was completing loading the program he designed onto a portable hard drive. He would connect to the printer inside of the embassy to download all of the documents in the last month. He hoped the embassy didn't have protocols in place to wipe the memories of the printers.

"OK, I'm in. Recording video feeds on Cameras 7 through 16," Jimmy said.

Ilsa provided Chuck and Jimmy a layout of the surveillance and computer systems inside the embassy. Cameras 1 through 6 had to be kept as live feeds, since they would pick up Sarah and Jimmy having their 'problems' in the main area of the embassy, while Chuck and Casey snuck in the back. The most difficult part would be making it past several office workers who were stationed near the printers. Chuck made a very reasonable facsimile of the ID's worn in the embassy, but an observant employee may not buy his IT cover story. Casey could only get him inside. Casey couldn't risk being caught on camera, since they had to assume the DGSE knew about him. If everything went right, there wouldn't be any problems at all. However, Chuck would have to rely on his Intersect and an unarmed Sarah and Jimmy if things went wrong.

"The program is ready," Chuck said as he put a small portable drive in his pocket. "Jimmy, are you set?"

"Ready with the surveillance," Jimmy replied. "Put twenty minutes on the clock….and…go."

Jimmy looped the twenty minutes of video surveillance and quickly exited the van with Sarah. Chuck and Casey would wait in the van for five more minutes before walking to the embassy.

Sarah and Jimmy got to the corner of the embassy. They peeked ahead to the entrance. The two men at the door with automatic weapons hidden under their coats were expected.

"Ready?" Sarah asked Jimmy.

"For once, I'm not worried about me. You're the one who has to pull a Kate Winslet," Jimmy replied with a smirk.

Sarah gave a quick exhale and changed her expression to one of sadness and panic. She manufactured a good wailing cry and fell forward into Jimmy's arms. He gently led her around the corner to the entrance of the embassy.

"Baby, it's going to be all right. They'll fix everything here. You'll get a new passport, and everything will be fine," Jimmy said loudly enough so the two men at the door would hear him. He held up a French passport, and the two guards let them in. As they entered, Sarah kept crying into Jimmy's shoulder as he desperately looked around the embassy. A liaison walked up to them.

"Thank God I found this place. My wife is going hysterical. I kept trying to tell her you could fix this, but she's just…it's been one disaster after another this weekend. My parents never made the wedding, it rained, and the music director couldn't get our wedding song right…"

"What is the problem, sir?" the slightly harried liaison asked.

"Aagh! I'm going insane! It's…honey, it'll be OK," Jimmy told Sarah, who wouldn't stop crying. He handed the liaison his French passport. "I'm Claude Bettencourt, and this is my wife, Josette. We were on the Metro, trying to get to a café, and she puts her purse down for two seconds…two LOUSY seconds…and someone made off with it. Her keys, her passport, her credit cards were all in there. We just got married over the weekend, we're on our honeymoon, and it's just been…"

Jimmy was cut off by Sarah crying even harder. "What are they going to do? I wanted the perfect wedding! That's all I asked for!" Sarah became more and more hysterical, and the liaison nervously looked to her right and motioned for others to help her. "My parents disowned me because I didn't want to marry Pierre, I miss getting into the Research Master program by three points, and now all of my possessions were stolen! Even the photos!"

"Wedding photos?" the liaison asked. Sarah screamed even harder.

"Uh, other photos," Jimmy said in a hushed voice.

Chuck and Casey got the code word, Pierre, to proceed. Casey kept watch while Chuck inserted an electronic device in the door's keypad to open it. He entered the back of the embassy.

"There are two printers to check," Ilsa told Chuck over his earpiece. The first one is 20 meters down the hallway in room 21-B, and the other is on the second floor near the stairwell."

"Got it," Chuck said and moved quickly to the printer on the main floor. Casey kept watch by the door.

Jimmy turned back to Sarah and grabbed her hands to 'calm' her. "We're here now, and the consulate deals with these problems. It'll be fine."

That set Sarah off. "NOTHING is going to be fine!" She started hitting Jimmy. "Stop acting like nothing's wrong! You can't fix this! They can't fix this!"

Sarah walked down the hall past the embassy employees and began shouting at them. "Can you get my gardenia centerpieces back? Can you get my parents to speak to me again? Huh? Answer me!"

Two security guards grabbed Sarah and tried to take her away. Jimmy pulled them off of her. "Hey! Hey! Let go of her and just tell me where we can take care of this. Just lead the way, will you?"

The security guards pointed to a room down the hallway. Jimmy grabbed Sarah and tried to pull her to the room. Sarah struggled against Jimmy on purpose, crying the whole time, to attract the attention of more security people.

Chuck made it to the printer on the main floor. The four people that would have seen him at the printer went to watch the spectacle Sarah and Jimmy were putting on. He quickly connected the drive to the printer and downloaded the printer's cache. He removed the drive and walked back to the stairwell Ilsa told him. He went up the stairs to the second floor.

Sarah and Jimmy sat in the room by themselves, and two of the security guards waited outside. Sarah looked crossly at Jimmy.

"OTHER photos?" she hissed at him.

"I didn't think you meant wedding pictures. Why would those be in your purse? Didn't you hire a photographer for your wedding?"

"I could have had wedding pictures. Now they'll think we're a couple of perverts."

"They will not. Besides, I would have sprung for a good photographer. That's an important thing to have at a wedding."

Oh, like you didn't just throw away all our money on that crappy band and an open bar."

Jimmy was getting offended. "What's wrong with an open bar? You have a cash bar, and people think you're cheap. I didn't want people to think we were a cheap couple!"

Chuck had a weird look on his face as he downloaded the data from the second printer. "Uh, Sarah? Jimmy? When did you two get married, and why wasn't I invited to the wedding?"

Sarah and Jimmy stopped dead in their tracks, and their insane argument suddenly clicked in.

Jimmy shook his head. "Great. I've turned into William Shatner. Stupid method acting crap!"

Chuck pulled the portable drive from the second printer and peered out into the hall. He started towards the stairs. Two security guards walked up from below. He sprinted in the opposite direction.

"Guys, I've got two security guards up here, and I don't know where I'm going!"

Casey tried to use the electronic device to open the back door. "They reset the codes. It'll take me a few minutes to get in."

"Casey, I seriously doubt I have a few minutes!" Chuck rounded a corner at the opposite end of the embassy as the two guards gave chase.

In the room off the main hallway of the embassy, Sarah and Jimmy looked at each other.

"Any ideas, boss?" Jimmy asked.

"Run like hell, get upstairs, and find Chuck," she quickly replied and readied herself to go. Jimmy grabbed the door handle.

"Two…one…now!"

Jimmy threw open the door, and Sarah sprinted out with Jimmy right on her heels. They surprised the two guards standing by the door, who gave chase. Sarah and Jimmy found a stairwell near the front of the building and ran upstairs to the second floor. They sprinted down the hallway looking for Chuck.

Chuck ran into a large room with a door at the opposite end. He tried to open it, but it was locked. He ran back to the door he came in, only to encounter the two security guards with their guns out.

Sarah and Jimmy turned a corner with two other security guards in pursuit. The guards turned the same corner, but they tripped over Jimmy's outstretched foot. Sarah landed a punch on one of the guards, while Jimmy kneed the other in the head. They ran to the end of the hall and heard Chuck's voice from behind a door.

"Listen, I…I work in the IT department. See? Here's my badge," Chuck pleaded to the guards, who were having none of it.

Sarah and Jimmy peered through the glass of the door at Chuck. The two guards moved into the room with their guns pointed at Chuck.

"We have to find that other entrance fast," Sarah said, trying to remain calm as a small amount of worry crept into her voice.

"We don't have enough time. Stand back," Jimmy replied and stepped back from the door. He ran at it.

"Jimmy, that door is made of metal…" Sarah said too late as Jimmy crashed through the door and knocked it down, his head breaking the glass. The two guards turned in surprise at Jimmy, who was lying on the ground. It was enough for Chuck to flash. Sarah leaped into the room and knocked the gun from one of the guard with a roundhouse kick. She pivoted again and gave him a shot across the head, while Chuck landed a jab on the other guard, who dropped his gun. Chuck took him out with a hook.

Chuck and Sarah turned around and looked at Jimmy on the ground, who was slowly coming around. Jimmy looked up at them.

"You know what I just realized?" Jimmy said in a daze.

"You don't weigh 400 pounds anymore?" Sarah asked him with disdain.

"I don't weigh 400 pounds anymore," Jimmy begrudgingly agreed.

Chuck and Sarah pulled Jimmy up, and the three made their way to the back of the embassy. They opened the door to a surprised Casey as Ilsa drove the van up. Everybody got inside the van and drove away.

Moscow, Russia
May 9, 2011
9:00 PM

Chuck analyzed the login names and files he downloaded from the two printers, looking for any of Ilsa's documents. Unfortunately, there were over two hundred possibilities. Casey kept watch, while Jimmy finished bandaging the last of the four large cuts on his face, courtesy of the broken glass at the embassy.

"I found it," Chuck announced. Jimmy sat at the other computer while Chuck printed out the information. "The man's name is Bruno Aguillard."

Jimmy typed the information into his computer, which was still linked with the embassy's mainframe. Aguillard's picture and file came up on the screen. Ilsa took a look at it.

"That's him," she said with considerable resolve in her voice. "He was the one I saw in the Metro trying to hand off the documents to the North Koreans."

"His file indicates he's an analyst for the Undersecretary of Cultural Services," Jimmy said. "Would he have access to such top-secret information?"

Ilsa shook her head. "Not on his own. Nobody at the embassy should have access to those documents other than the Ambassador himself. Perhaps not even him."

"We could try apprehending him, but I don't think he can be coerced," Sarah said.

Chuck sat there for a moment. "What if we could con him into giving up who he's working for? One of us pretends to be working for Toupin and convinces Aguillard that there's a big problem and he needs to do something he doesn't want to do. Or something like that."

Jimmy looked confused. "Was that from an episode of Mission: Impossible?"

Chuck shrugged. "Actually, I think they did it on Burn Notice."

"That would work,"Casey concluded. "One of us pretends there are problems going on and Toupin sent us to get information. We float Toupin's name and use what we know already to trick him into giving up who is behind all of this."

"He might be more sympathetic to someone who is desperate. Maybe if the person was roughed up," Sarah added.

Everybody looked at Jimmy. He was momentarily confused before touching the bandages on his face.

"Right, of course. But a few cuts of glass doesn't look very convincing."

Casey had the biggest smile on his face Chuck had ever seen. "I can fix that," Casey said…and hit Jimmy. Jimmy fell to the ground.

"CASEY!" Sarah shouted in full anger at Casey. Chuck went to help Jimmy.

Casey pointed to Jimmy and acted as if he did nothing wrong. "Now it's perfect. A good shiner will get anybody's sympathy."

Chuck pulled Jimmy up, who looked ready to tear Casey's head off. Jimmy strained his words as he attempted to rein in his fury.

"We…could…have…used…MAKEUP!"

Casey nodded quietly. "True. Good point."

Jimmy had a crazed look in his eyes. "Chuck, would you like to take a shot at me so I complete the trifecta?"

Chuck grabbed Jimmy before he could go after Casey, pulling him towards the bedroom. "Jimmy, just…let it go. Be cool. Breathe. In and out, there you go." Chuck led Jimmy away. Sarah glared at Casey.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Sarah was absolutely incensed. "We'll be lucky if Jimmy doesn't drive right to the airport and head home!"

"He's a professional. He's done crazier things than this to complete a mission," Casey replied without an ounce of remorse.

"This isn't a mission! This is us trying to keep you from being court-martialed again! We might owe that to you, but Jimmy doesn't!"

Sarah walked away from Casey in a full boil. Casey looked at Ilsa, who shook her head and walked away from him as well.

Moscow, Russia
May 9, 2011
9:45 PM

Jimmy was lying on the bed in his bedroom with his hand covering his eyes. Someone knocked on the door.

"Go away," he called out tiredly. Sarah opened the door and entered. Jimmy removed his hand and looked at her with annoyance. "OK, should I explain the whole concept of 'go away' or are you not planning on listening to me anyway?"

Sarah sat on the bed next to him and handed him a raw hamburger patty. Jimmy had to smile.

"Yo, Adrian. Youse a good woman, you know that," Jimmy droned in a reasonable imitation of an iconic movie boxer as he took the hamburger patty and put it over his left eye. Sarah gave a little laugh.

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine."

"Casey…he had no right to do that. I'm not going to let up on him until he apologizes…"

Jimmy waved it off. "It's not his style. He's not much of an apology person. It doesn't really matter anyway." Jimmy tilted his head and looked at Sarah with his good eye. "I'm sorry about that whole 'trifecta' thing earlier. I know you apologized for hitting me already and…"

"Stop it," Sarah said. She was starting to get the feeling Jimmy may never change. "Casey hauls off and hits you without warning, and you think one little word from you is what has me ticked off?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Casey was right, though. This black eye I'll soon have will be a great selling point to Aguillard."

Sarah shook her head and looked down at the ground. "It's funny. I was mad at what Casey did to you, and I told him you were going out of your way to help him when you didn't have to. But I feel like a hypocrite now. I was scared out of my mind when Chuck ran out with you to get the car, and he almost fell off the roof of that mansion trying to rescue me. And he felt the same way when that killer had the drop on me before Ilsa blinded him with the cabin lights. There's no way we could have been married and still be field agents. There's so much at stake now. But both of us will be able to walk away from that because of you. You shouldn't have to do that. Why should you walk into the crossfire just so Chuck and I don't have to?"

"I'm not just doing it for you…"

"I know, I know. You said that. But you were still thinking about us when you decided this. You shouldn't have to sacrifice what you want just to make our lives a little better. You don't owe us that. You never owed us anything. Why can't you see that?"

A smile came to Jimmy's face. He sat up in the bed and put the hamburger patty on the nightstand.

"I talked to Alex about that very thing after the three of you left Vegas. She wanted to know why I went out of my way to keep her out of trouble even after trying to get me fired. I told her the real reason. The reason I never told you and Chuck."

Sarah was confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You told me that CIA recruiter found you in high school after your father was arrested."

Sarah nodded. "Director Graham, yes."

"OK. What if he never found you that day? What do you think you'd be doing now?"

Sarah was silent for a long moment. "I don't know. I might have continued to steal. Maybe work my way up to more serious crimes. I probably would have ended up dead or in jail."

"But you're not. You're smart, gorgeous, one of the best agents in the CIA, and you're about to marry one of the coolest guys on the planet."

Sarah smiled and nodded. "Correct on all counts, Jimmy."

"OK. What do you think would have happened to me had we never met? Probably something similar. I would have kept moving from town to town, just being angry and hating myself. I'm sure I would have looked a hundred times worse than I did when you found me. Either I would have dropped dead of a coronary, or I would have put a gun under my chin and pulled the trigger, wondering why I didn't do it twenty years sooner. And maybe it was me who lost the weight and went through training to be an agent. But would I have done all of that had you three not encouraged me to do it? I'm a much different person today, and I have you, Chuck, and Casey to thank for it. I never dreamed of looking like this or having the life I do now. How do you pay someone back for giving you that? You can't. You can sit there and say I never owed you anything, but you have to look at it from my perspective to understand why I think I owe you everything."

Sarah took Jimmy's hand and squeezed it tightly. Jimmy continued.

"I don't have a lot of things in my life I can look at and be proud of. But the one thing I do have is that I never backed down when I was needed. It was the only thing I had where I could look in the mirror and not be repulsed by what I saw. It kept me going. I can't stop doing that now. And whatever you and Chuck need to have the life you want, I'm going to make sure you have it. You said I would never shake the two of you. Well, that works both ways."

Sarah put her arms around Jimmy and hugged him tightly. She considered herself fortunate that she walked into the Buy More four years ago and met that cute, sweet Nerd Herder who turned her life around and gave her a chance to feel love. It boggled her mind how much she had now because of Chuck. And Jimmy was yet another example of it.

"Thank you," she said quietly into Jimmy's ear as she held onto him.

Moscow, Russia
May 10, 2011
6:00 PM

It didn't take much reconnaissance to find Bruno Aguillard. He was one to enjoy the bottle. He frequented a bar two kilometers from the embassy. Sarah, Jimmy, and Ilsa tailed him from the embassy to that location.

Jimmy walked into the bar, armed with a hidden microphone and camera. He went directly to Aguillard.

"Come here," Jimmy said with an authoritative growl. Aguillard was surprised, but he followed Jimmy to a secluded table. Jimmy flashed the ID Chuck used yesterday, covering Chuck's face in the process.

"I just got out of a meeting with Toupin and some of his 'close' associates. I'm sure you can tell how that went. The North Koreans are fuming. They want their documents, and they don't want to hear excuses."

Aguillard studied Jimmy's beat-up face. "Are you insane? I barely escaped with my life in the Metro!" Aguillard was fearful, to put it mildly. "That female spy almost killed me!"

"Don't you read the papers, jackass? She's dead. We took her out. Nobody else knows, so it's time to start playing paperboy again and make your deliveries."

"Forget it. It's not worth the effort. The North Koreans are going to ask me questions, and I don't have answers."

"This isn't a country club, idiot! You don't just say 'I'm done' and walk away. We have a lot of money on this, and they want their information!"

"No way. I don't care if Baudin himself comes here and threatens me. He's not paying me enough to risk my life like this."

Jimmy got in the man's face and flashed his gun. "I'd keep looking behind me if I were you." He walked out of the bar and hid out of sight in the alley.

In the van, Ilsa's face was completely blanched. Sarah's concern was growing quickly.

"Baudin?" she asked.

Ilsa nodded slowly. "Roland Baudin. Dr. Gauthier's boss. President Sarkozy's Minister of Defence."

Jimmy let out a low whistle. "When you uncover government conspiracies, Ilsa, you don't mess around. Watergate was a couple of stolen notebooks compared to this."